Uzo Aduba Jokes Lack of Sleep as a Mom of an Infant Is a 'Crime Against Humanity’: ‘On Another Level’ (Exclusive)

The mom of 10-month-old Adaiba also tells PEOPLE she's been surprised by how quickly her daughter has grown: "I'm here every day watching, and it goes so fast"

• Orange Is the New Black actress Uzo Aduba welcomed daughter Adaiba with her husband, filmmaker Robert Sweeting, in November 2023

• “I didn't know how fast it goes,” the Emmy winner tells PEOPLE of motherhood

• Aduba remembers her own mom, who died in November 2021 from pancreatic cancer, in her memoir The Road Is Good: How a Mother's Strength Became a Daughter's Purpose

She spent years behind bars in Orange Is the New Black, grappled with loss in In Treatment and fought for women’s rights as the first Black congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm, in Mrs. America, but nothing could prepare Uzo Aduba for becoming a mom.

“People say it, and I have seven nieces and nephews, but you don't know how little you sleep in the beginning until you experience it,” Aduba, 43, tells PEOPLE. “In college, I could do sleepless nights. It's not the same. I wouldn't be surprised if The Art of War, it's used [as a] tactic, sleep deprivation. I understand why that is a crime against humanity. It is just on another level.”

Related: Uzo Aduba 'Was So Sure' She Wouldn't Find Love Until She Met Robert Sweeting: 'He Made Me Feel Safe' (Exclusive)

Aduba and her husband Robert Sweeting welcomed their first child, a daughter named Adaiba, in November 2023, and the actress can’t believe how quickly time has gone since then.

“I didn't know how fast it goes,” says Aduba, whose memoir The Road Is Good: How a Mother's Strength Became a Daughter's Purpose is out now. “Maybe because [with] my nieces and nephews, there's a level of expectation that I'm going to miss stages because I'm not sitting there watching. But I'm here every day watching, and it goes so fast. I can't believe some of the things. I don't know when I thought they happened, but I know I did not think I thought they happened in this timeframe with this speed.”

The Emmy winner calls that phenomenon both “beautiful and hard.”

“Those parents who are on the other side, where their kids are out of the house or have gotten married and had their grandchildren themselves, and they say, ‘It goes so fast.’ I'm like, ‘I think I may understand a little bit of what you mean because I can't believe we're here already,’ ” Aduba says. “It's the hard work of being so happy that we are here and letting her continue to grow and develop in that independent way, and then I'm like, ‘But don't grow up too fast.’ You want to hold on.”

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In her new memoir, Aduba, remembers her late mom Nonyem, who died in November 2021 from pancreatic cancer, and talks about the influence her mom had on her throughout her life. Aduba wishes her mother could’ve been there for her pregnancy.

“When I was pregnant, I would have strokes of sadness because I was like, ‘Man, of all the moments I wish she could be here for, I wish it was this,’” Aduba admits. “I was also really sad because I was nervous that I didn't have what I thought everybody else had, [which] was their mom to show you how to do this. I felt cheated that I wasn't going to have those things on full display to help me be a great mother to my daughter.”

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Nonyem has come through in one very specific way, though, since the Boston University grad gave birth to her daughter last year.

“I'm wildly surprised with every day how much of Nonyem lives literally inside of me,” Aduba says. “How some of the things that she said to me, my sibling growing up come out of me. My mom is famous for going, ‘No, no, no,’ when she talking to you. The first time it came out of my mouth, I was like, ‘Who said that?’ I promise you, I never said this before.”

Related: Orange Is the New Black’s Uzo Aduba Recalls the Unexpected Person Who Taught Her to Love Her Tooth Gap (Exclusive)

Unconsciously borrowing that phrase from her mom made Aduba “really happy” because it showed her that our loved ones “never leave us.”

“Almost like The Lion King, they live in you,” Aduba says. “They really do. I am getting all the wonderful stuff that I'm supposed to hand down because she poured so heavily into me and left enough for me to be able to pour into her. So I'm thankful for that.”

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